


I like boys who like their mothers (and I've got a thing for brothers)

by hawrthiacoopri



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'm pretty satisfied with this but it's a definite WIP, bless, i love mileven with all of my heart, this is my first fic :")
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8353756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawrthiacoopri/pseuds/hawrthiacoopri
Summary: Mike loved to garden, and El loved to watch.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "So Nice So Smart" off of the Juno soundtrack and I reccomend it so highly you wouldn't believe

Mike loved to garden, and El loved to watch.

Well, it wasn't really rare that El liked to watch whatever Mike was doing. They always showed different sides of his personality. 

She loved to watch him play Dungeons & Dragons; he was always so excitable and bouncy when he was in the position of power, instead of being picked on. 

She liked to watch him watch his favorite movies, too. When they were watching them together, Mike always animatedly tell her exactly what was happening, even though she might not need it. He'd grab her hand and rub her knuckles, whispering and smiling at her.

She especially loved watching him work on his bike; after El had gotten one, Mike had been inspired to improve on his bike. She'd sit there for hours, just watching Mike try to figure out why his chain kept catching (hint: it was because he tried to fix problems that weren't there until he'd started working). And even though he wasn't doing much more than he'd done before, he still looked funny with an oil streak on his cheek.

But gardening took the cake for El. It won her interest by a landslide. Gardening was one of the things that Mike was most skilled at. She'd seen him grow 3 rose bushes, 14 sunflowers, 19 little needle-plants (or 'sempervivums' as Mike insisted on calling them), and more tiny flowers than El could count. During the summer, Mike put on his overalls and this big floaty thing that Nancy called a 'grandma flopper', which Mike pretended to not care about, but it did disappear after a week or two. He also slapped on a pair of gloves and grabbed something called a spade that he really liked to flip around, and headed outside. 

He'd spend a little bit canoodling around the outside rim of the garden, since Karen had given up on yard care about 3 year ago, cleaning up leaves and thistles. She'd spend that time trying to read her books, before eventually just sitting on the ground near the corner closest to the house. He'd toss the discarded plants into the woods, before starting to weed the main areas. 

That was the part El probably liked most. He'd usually start humming some song or another and smile goofily while he threw the grass and weeds into the glen. He usually eventually found a worm or two and would beckon Eleven over, placing them in her hand and giggling when she'd let them crawl up her arms, before taking the nice bugs back and replacing them in the soil. 

One day El had asked why he did that when he found them. "Don't those things eat your plants? Why do you put them back?" 

Mike grinned. "Not all bugs are bad. Worms make sure that the dirt is nice and soft. But snails, they're bad bugs. They eat my flowers' leaves. But worms are friends." 

El liked that, so she repeated it. "Worms are... friends?" 

"Yes. Because they help us. And friends help each other." 

El also liked to watch him water and plant his seeds. He'd water each individually, giving them compost and scattering a little bit of growth hormone on each one. He'd started giving them growth hormones around August, since he said they'd started to shrink. 

She didn't see how, though, since she'd been told that plants only grew up and not down. But she didn't dispute him on it. 

Instead, she watched him poke and fill holes with seeds. He always whispered into the pats, which confused El to no end.

"Why do you talk to the seeds?" 

Mike looked up. "What?" His eyes crinkled up at the corners. "Oh. Because my mom said that compliments help plants grow, especially if you sing to them." He looked away sheepishly. "But I don't sing in front of other people. So I just compliment them." 

El liked that idea, too. Worms are friends and seeds like compliments. 

And El liked Mike.

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaAAAAh I'm really sorry if this is complete trash I just wanted to try my hand at this sort of thing. Also MIKE IN OVERALLS AND A HUGE SUNHAT LIKE IF YOU AGREE 
> 
> •
> 
> Also, I'm going to start putting the fics on my sideblog for writing (@jewishmikewheeler) on this page so if you think I'm copying!!! I can confirm that's my account for you by messaging your account or posting screenshots of my sideblogs.


End file.
